1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an armrest control device and an armrest device.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, techniques of adjusting a position of an armrest are known. In the adjustment of a position of an armrest, techniques relate to the adjustment of a position of an armrest according to various conditions are proposed.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2011-148383 discloses a technique, in which reaction force that an armrest gives to an upper arm or an elbow is adjusted by changing a position of an armrest on the basis of vehicle speed and a yaw rate of the vehicle, for reducing fatigue of a driver in various driving situations.
Incidentally, in recent years, a vehicle capable of traveling in an automatic driving mode that allows the vehicle to travel automatically not depending on operations such as a steering operation, accelerator operation and brake operation of a driver is proposed. Such a vehicle does not always travel in the automatic driving mode, but also travels in a manual driving mode in which the vehicle travels on the basis of various operations of a driver, and switching between the automatic driving mode and the manual driving mode is made possible.
In the manual driving mode, a driver must perform steering operations. On the other hand, in the automatic driving mode, since a driver does not have to grip a steering, it is considered that the position of an armrest is adjusted to a position corresponding to a comfortable posture to be set as a posture of a driver in the automatic driving mode for reducing the fatigue of the driver. Hereby, the driver can place an arm on the armrest, and take a comfortable posture. Here, when a switching from the automatic driving mode to the manual driving mode is performed, the driver must grip the steering at the time point when the switching to the manual driving is completed. Therefore, it is expected to actualize a smooth transition of the posture of the driver before and after the switching of the driving mode by prompting the grip of the steering by the driver, in the switching from the automatic driving mode to the manual driving mode.